SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Millions of shipping containers
passing through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach next
year will be assessed a new fee designed to improve air quality
and remove a political obstacle that has stymied expansion of
the country's largest port complex.

Both seaports, which adjoin each other but operate
independently, approved a $35 cargo fee this week for 20-foot
container units that enter or exit the ports on trucks that do
not meet 2007 emissions standards.

Officials expect the fee to generate $1.6 billion over the
next five years and say they will use the proceeds to replace a
fleet of 16,800 dirty trucks that carry containers between
ships, local distribution centers and rail lines.

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"The tennis shoes will be a nickel more, but the people
will breathe healthier here," said David Freeman, president of
the Los Angeles Port Commission.

These aging, short-haul trucks handle about three-quarters
of the ports' freight and are part of the machinery --
including ships, harbor craft, and locomotives -- that has long
been criticized for its air pollution of the local environment.

About 25 percent of the diesel emissions in the Los Angeles
basin originate from the ports and, when combined with other
port gases, are responsible for about 67 premature deaths each
year, according to the California Air Resources Board.

Forty percent of the country's imports pass through the
complex, leaving nearby residents to suffer unusually high
rates of asthma and lung disease. Public concern has made port
expansion politically unfeasible even as port traffic has
boomed in recent years, Freeman said.

"We've taken two significant steps now: We have a timetable
for cleaning up, and we have a way to help people do it,"
Freeman said.

The fee will begin in June, and the ports expect to begin
phasing out diesel trucks, some that date to 1989, in October.

However, not all are in favor of the new program: Most of
the ports' short-haul trucks are operated by independent
contractors, often low-income, Spanish-speaking drivers who
make about $12 an hour.

The drivers say they cannot afford to maintain new
computer-controlled engines on greener trucks even if the port
provides the rigs. In recent weeks, they have stood at port
gates to protest with whistles and signs asking trucking
companies to buy the rigs and formally hire them to drive.

The ports will consider their request and other questions
about how to distribute the funds next month.

But in the end, the program will certainly amount to an
overhaul of how trucking works in the country's largest port
complex, Freeman said.

"I think the vast majority of people understand that we
have an obligation to grow and green the port," Los Angeles
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told Reuters in a telephone
interview on Thursday. "And you're not going to grow it if you
don't green it."